Welcome to the Forum Archive!

Years of conversation fill a ton of digital pages, and we've kept all of it accessible to browse or copy over. Whether you're looking for reveal articles for older champions, or the first time that Rammus rolled into an "OK" thread, or anything in between, you can find it here. When you're finished, check out the boards to join in the latest League of Legends discussions.

Ziggs, and why his ultimate is not rewarding.

Despite Ziggs ultimate being an amazing spell that gives you a bit more global prescence, I don't believe it really feels rewarding to hit. The damage it deals is very small compared to the difficulty it is to hit.

I'll go into detail:

-No reward for more range

To be honest, I class this ultimate up there with Ashe's ultimate in terms of difficulty to hit. it may be even harder at max range, as Ashe's arrow has a much higher hit range in terms of AoE, as it can hit anyone in it's line of effect over the entire map, while ziggs ult has a set AoE.

The main difference here is if ashe does make a brilliant cross map ulti, she gets a massive stun on it, compared to if she shot someone right in front of her with it, while ziggs does the same thing no matter how far away or what distance you threw it from. Being right next to the target is the most reliable way to get damage off, and as an artillery caster like Ziggs, this mechanic goes against itself.

My suggestion? Give it a nidalee spear effect, maybe up to 50% extra damage depending on how far away it was? Possibly more, those things have like 3 seconds travel time. And the giant area on the ground marking it doesn't help either. Honestly, with people's ability to just walk out of it, hitting it can just be a miracle. It's the farthest thing from subtle, and so it should be. Just make it so making a loud miracle ult does more than if you hit an instant close up ultimate.

-Up the cooldown, up the damage.

Currently the cooldown on the ult is very short. This does go along well with the rest of the kit having low cd and low damage, with good utility, but the Ziggs ult is supposed to be a giant bomb that flies through to air and just nukes and area. It's his ULTIMATE, it's the exception to his kit. Having it up every 70 seconds is very very low for an ultimate, but at the same time, a Ziggs ultimate is very rarely gamechanging. The damage is low for an ultimate, but if it was increased it could be overpowered. After all, it's on 70 second cd. It you can't have a massive AoE nuke that does a good amount of damage compared to other ults on 70 seconds. That's imba.

However, increasing the cooldown is a good excuse to buff the damage, and make it feel like a giant bomb should. Hell, like an ULTIMATE should, particularly ziggs' ultimate, which is the closest equivalent in LoL to a nuke.

-Make the damage more reliable.

Don't get this twisted, I don't want the ultimate to be less difficult to hit. In my opinion that would ruin Ziggs' skill curve completely, and ruin the feel of his ultimate aswell. No, what I'm talking about it the whole 'more damage in the middle, less on the outside' effect the ultimate has.

To be honest, this makes his damage very unreliable. His ulti does less on the outside and more on the inside, and when it's difficult enough to hit as is, giving the victim the option to take less damage by walking to the side seems counter intuitive. Essentially, to get an effective ultimate hit, you've lowered the AoE for the most effective damage by what, half? With a travel time like Ziggs ult, it's almost impossible to hit as is, let alone to hit in a certain part of the circle.

I'm of the opinion that where INSIDE the ulti hits the person shouldn't be an effective factor as to how much damage ziggs should deal. With a high skill ulti, making a hit that isn't exactly direct shouldn't be punished, as it is right now. It robs the ziggs player of the hit in the first place, which isn't fair to the player. My recommendation is to either make the middle part bigger, or more ideally, just remove this whole mechanic and make it uniform damage across the whole of the AoE.

So, in summary.
-Long range is punished with longer travel time, and should be more rewarding (damaging) if you land a long range ult.
-Upping the damage and balancing this out with upping the cooldown would make this spell a lot rewarding to hit, and would make the ultimate actually feel like an ultimate.
-Removing the 'outside of the ulti does less damage' effect and making it uniform damage across the whole AoE would make it more rewarding to hit, and not rob players of the hti damage they deserve.

I believe these would be solid QoL changes to Ziggs, and would make him a much more solid caster overall, and a lot more fun and rewarding to play. I guess I'm asking for a buff in making his ult more usable and damaging in exchange for a cd increase, which I think is a fair thing for both Ziggs players and people who have to play against him.

I'm not sure about the increased damage based on range because the abilities benefit is that it's able to go such a long range in the first place. You wouldn't ask that Ezreal or Draven do more damage from a distance, it's just nice that you have an ability that can go that far at all, even though it is difficult to hit.

As for the reduced damage change, this is something that will just never be done. It's a counterplay mechanic and, although maybe not for Ziggs players, makes the ability more interesting and "real".

The center blast area should become an increasingly bigger portion of the hitbox depending on time in air, so that after 2/3rds of the range it deals full damage for the whole spell. The damage is not bad except for the fact that you are trying to land a skillshot the size of Dark Matter with a 3 second delay and a warning indicator for NORMAL damage.

The center blast area should become an increasingly bigger portion of the hitbox depending on time in air, so that after 2/3rds of the range it deals full damage for the whole spell. The damage is not bad except for the fact that you are trying to land a skillshot the size of Dark Matter with a 3 second delay and a warning indicator for NORMAL damage.

Landing the skillshot is difficult enough at max range, making it so people can walk out of a lot of the damage just by getting out of the centre. And even if the centre is 2/3rds of the ultimate. The fact that people can walk out of damage from a caster's ultimate is and then the caster gets not that much reward from hitting it is a travesty.

Quote:

Twelfth Red:

I agree mostly with the increased damage and cooldown.

I'm not sure about the increased damage based on range because the abilities benefit is that it's able to go such a long range in the first place. You wouldn't ask that Ezreal or Draven do more damage from a distance, it's just nice that you have an ability that can go that far at all, even though it is difficult to hit.

As for the reduced damage change, this is something that will just never be done. It's a counterplay mechanic and, although maybe not for Ziggs players, makes the ability more interesting and "real".

The difference between Draven and Ezreal, and Ziggs is that this is one of Ziggs only ways to deal damage. Draven and Ezreal both do consistant damage with autoattacks, and their ultimates are a supplement to that. The fact that Ezreal and Draven's ultimates are unreliable at high range is alright, because they don't rely on it to do damage, whereas Ziggs HAS to rely on it to do damage. Thus it should be rewarded for long range.

That's like saying 'AP nidalee doesn't need extra damage on her spears when Ezreal doesn't get it on his q'. They're different spells for different kits, and Ziggs' ultimate is integral to his kit, while ezreal's while being very well made and suited to him, is an extra ability to supplement the rest of his kit, while being a good ultimate spell.

Being able to walk outside of the radius of the ultimate at long range is counterplay enough. Hell, it's a nunu ult at range with less damage and less damage on the outside aswell. The fact that you hit the ultimate should be just that you hit the ultimate, not whether you hit it on the outside. Like Aardvark said, it's like trying to hit a dark matter with 3 second delay and a giant mark on the ground telling you it's there.

The difference between Draven and Ezreal, and Ziggs is that this is one of Ziggs only ways to deal damage. Draven and Ezreal both do consistant damage with autoattacks, and their ultimates are a supplement to that. The fact that Ezreal and Draven's ultimates are unreliable at high range is alright, because they don't rely on it to do damage, whereas Ziggs HAS to rely on it to do damage. Thus it should be rewarded for long range.

That's like saying 'AP nidalee doesn't need extra damage on her spears when Ezreal doesn't get it on his q'. They're different spells for different kits, and Ziggs' ultimate is integral to his kit, while ezreal's while being very well made and suited to him, is an extra ability to supplement the rest of his kit, while being a good ultimate spell.

Being able to walk outside of the radius of the ultimate at long range is counterplay enough. Hell, it's a nunu ult at range with less damage and less damage on the outside aswell. The fact that you hit the ultimate should be just that you hit the ultimate, not whether you hit it on the outside. Like Aardvark said, it's like trying to hit a dark matter with 3 second delay and a giant mark on the ground telling you it's there.

But what is the counterplay to the ult when he fires it from maybe 1000 away? I'm not saying that there ALWAYS needs to be a way to completely negate it, that's not fair to Ziggs. Back to Ezreal and Draven, the counter play to them is just step to the side, especially when you can see Ezreal charging it. At a close range, Ziggs' ult travels fast and is pretty enormous. I like what the other guy said, where the diminished damage scales with distance, where it maybe is the size of dark matter at close range, and maybe is almost the entire size at a distance.

you have a global ult ... and because people have counter play in the fact they can dodge it ... you want them to be punished harder for such a mistake?

im pretty sure ... no im 100% sure....

Ziggs ult is for 1 thing. Securing a kill on an enemy that is getting away ... risk/reward is there... now if you just want an "i win button" ult, go play dota2?

No, I don't want to punish people for being able to dodge a Ziggs ultimate, I want to be able punish people for not dodging it. It has a 3 second travel time at max range, so using it and hitting it should be more rewarding than it is. It's marked on the ground. It takes longer than pantheon's ult to get there. If you do by some miracle manage to hit it, it should do more than it is doing currently.

The reason of why you don't feel it rewarding is because it almost never hits on the middle.

But if you use it as soon as a team fight starts, it's possible to hit at least 3 and hit the enemy carry right on spot. It's the same principle as MF's ult, it's better used to initiate fights than finishing.